Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Workin' In The Woods

So far most of the flagstone is staying in place just after that monsoon we experienced the day after we installed these puppies. I acquired a bag of sand from Campus Rec to fill in the cracks somewhat. Hopefully the finer grains will set these little rocks for good. The sooner sediment sets up around all this rock the more stable it'll be for walking and running.

 
Next little project I decided on tackling was the monster roots, below,  on two different sections of the trail. I decided on loose gravel similar to what I've seen at DuPont in Brevard, NC. for this section. The bad thing about loose gravel is that it floats and doesn't set as long as there's a good layer of it. When / if... it thins out the rock should stay put.

 
With very limited funds, well actually no funds, I needed materials so I decided to rob the water tower drive for some of it's rocks. I filled in the deep spots before smoothing them out. This will, no doubt, help this section so much. I forgot to take the after pic, sorry. But after hauling about 10 five gallon buckets of gravel my arms were jello and the fact that the Tues/Thurs running club was rolling through here like a steady train of railroad cars.

 
Next section;  (below) this is at one of the entrances to the woods on the other side of the road. It's a section that you ride into, hang a 180 to the left and up into this rooty mess. It gains about 6 to 8ft of climbing within 12ft so it has a good upward pitch coming in and around the curve. No rocks or stones anywhere near this one so I decided to repack in between the roots with good ole dirt. We'll see how this stands after the first time it gets wet. I'm guessing 75% will stay in place. I tamped the dirt really well after each layer I put down.


 
Water will probably be the downfall of this repair I'm guessing. Next trip into Buffalo Mountain I'm going to grab some big stones and bring them back in moto-van then set them in this repaired section so that we'll be riding on the stones for the most part and not on the dirt or roots. The sooner I can get this armoured with big flat stone the better.

I heard the tree thank me as I was walking away....




Last work of the day was on short track. The single track is open and ready and the double jump is cleared of debris and ready for tail-whip action. I took a tad bit of the climbing out since I added that big chunk of single track of the XC trail into it so if the rain holds off for Wednesday we'll all be out there giving it a go @6pm. I love working on trails!





LAter G.........................

No comments: